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Evaluating The Effects Of The Blennerhassett Island Bridge Crossing (Ohio River) On Soil, Vegetation, And Wildlife, Joshua Allen Vance Dec 2010

Evaluating The Effects Of The Blennerhassett Island Bridge Crossing (Ohio River) On Soil, Vegetation, And Wildlife, Joshua Allen Vance

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports

Corridor D was one of the original 23 highway corridors selected by the Appalachian Highway Development System in 1965 and stretches from Bridgeport, West Virginia to Cincinnati, Ohio. The last piece of Corridor D to be completed was the Blennerhassett Island Bridge which crosses over the Ohio River and Blennerhassett Island near Parkersburg, West Virginia and Belpre, Ohio. The Blennerhassett Island Bridge is a tied-arch style bridge about 1,220 m in length and 24 m above the ground and water surface. Construction of the bridge began in March 2005 and the bridge was opened to the public in June 2008. …


Roosting Ecology Of Bats In A Disturbed Landscape, Joshua B. Johnson Aug 2010

Roosting Ecology Of Bats In A Disturbed Landscape, Joshua B. Johnson

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports

In 2007 and 2008, I examined roost selection of forest-interior dwelling northern myotis (Myotis septentrionalis) maternity colonies in stands treated with prescribed fire (hereafter, fire) and in unburned (hereafter, control) stands on the Fernow Experimental Forest, West Virginia. Using radio telemetry, I tracked 36 female northern myotis to 69 roost trees; 25 in the fire treatment and 44 in the control treatment. Using logistic regression and an information-theoretic model selection approach, I determined that within the fire treatment, northern myotis maternity colonies were more likely to use cavity trees that were smaller in diameter, higher in crown class, and located …


Effect Of Nutritional Deficiency On Ruffed Grouse Condition And Reproductive Success, Aaron B. Proctor Aug 2010

Effect Of Nutritional Deficiency On Ruffed Grouse Condition And Reproductive Success, Aaron B. Proctor

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports

Maternal body fat condition (i.e., percent carcass fat) is often a focal point in determining reproductive success in female galliforms. Previous research has centered around habitat-related nutritional parameters affecting body condition and the influence on reproductive capacity. Past studies have shown that ruffed grouse (Bonasa umbellus) maintain higher mean body fat levels throughout the Appalachians and variation in body condition exceeds that found in northern grouse. In the Appalachians, ruffed grouse with diets devoid of energy-rich hard mast have lower body fat condition. It has been hypothesized that females in poorer condition will have lower productivity in the Appalachians. We …


Predicting Species Composition In An Eastern Hardwood Forest With The Use Of Digitally Derived Terrain Variables, Richard D. Flanigan May 2010

Predicting Species Composition In An Eastern Hardwood Forest With The Use Of Digitally Derived Terrain Variables, Richard D. Flanigan

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports

This thesis addresses the need for improved classification of remotely sensed imagery in the complex hardwood forests of West Virginia. A geographic information system (GIS) was used in conjunction with forest plot data to develop a model to predict species composition in the eastern hardwood forest of West Virginia. The study area was located on the West Virginia University Research Forest (WVURF) in northern West Virginia. Terrain variables including aspect, curvature and slope change drastically at a local scale within the forest to greatly influence species composition. Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR) data was collected for the entire WVURF, which …


Spatially Heterogeneous Estimates Of Fire Frequency In Ponderosa Pine Forests Of Washington, Usa, James T. Kernan, Amy E. Hessl Jan 2010

Spatially Heterogeneous Estimates Of Fire Frequency In Ponderosa Pine Forests Of Washington, Usa, James T. Kernan, Amy E. Hessl

Faculty & Staff Scholarship

Many fire history studies have evaluated the temporal nature of fire regimes using fire interval statistics calculated from fire scars. More recently, researchers have begun to evaluate the spatial properties of past fires as well. In this paper, we describe a technique for investigating spatio-temporal variability using a geographic information system (GIS). We used a dataset of fire-scarred trees collected from four sites in eastern Washington, USA, ponderosa pine (Pinus ponderosa C. Lawson) forests. The patterns of past fires recorded by individual trees (points) were converted to two-dimensional representations of fire with inverse distance weighting (IDW) in a GIS. …